Ha, I was going to go on a tirade, about how I have a garage full of books, but there are still some I've lost that I miss, and then looked it up and I had picked it up again! So instead of seeing Psyklop, we get the Mandarin today; all part of my process. From 1977, Marvel Super-Heroes #62, reprinting 1968's Incredible Hulk #108, "Monster Triumphant!" Written by Stan Lee, pencils by Herby (Herb!) Trimpe, finishes by John Severin.

I keep complaining that the Hulk's reprint book here didn't reprint Hulk #144, a Doctor Doom smackdown I love; but maybe they skipped it because plot-wise it's pretty similiar to this one. The Mandarin brainwashes the Hulk, to use as a weapon; Nick Fury and his Russian counterpart Yuri Brevlov race to stop the Mandarin before he sets off a nuclear war. They manage to hold off the Mandarin until the Hulk returns, having shaken off the control; although the Hulk recognizes Yuri as having tried to kill him before as well, which doesn't improve his disposition any. Fury and Yuri--yeah, let's not do that, Fury and Brevlov--manage to escape, as the Hulk picks up the Mandarin's castle by a corner, to smash it.

The reprint is missing a couple pages, but not bad. Still, feels like a plot that would get some re-use there. Read more!

Technically, it was designed by A.I. and was radioactive; but it does look better than a Cybertruck.

From 1978, Shazam! #33, "The World's Mightiest Race" Written by E. Nelson Bridwell, pencils by Tenny Henson, inks by Vince Colletta with an assist by Kurt Schaffenberger. (That's somewhat unusual, Colletta's usual main selling point was that he was timely.)

This was pretty late in this series' run, and the book had been updated to more closely resemble the TV show; with Billy travelling the county with a newly mustached Uncle Dudley. He had more contact with the gods of his namesake for assists; but all this meant no Mary Marvel or Captain Marvel Jr. (Or so I thought, maybe it was just this issue: C.M. Jr. would be in the next issue; and the rest of the Marvel Family in the last.) This issue does feature a classic villain, that the TV show wouldn't have had the budget for, at all, ever: the robot Mister Atom! Mr. Mind had rebuilt him, and tasked him with challenging "the best car on earth" at the Indianapolis 500. The people had one hour to produce a racer, or Mister Atom would meltdown, irradiating the entire city.

Captain Marvel has an idea, and a reporter tips him to a garage where he can build a racer, with the help of some plucky kids. The wizard Shazam had tipped Billy, say his name while in the car, which the kids dub the Shazamobile--a great name, that Captain Marvel couldn't say! Now with the car powered by magic lightning, CM races Atom, who is dismayed when the Shazamobile pulls ahead, doing "300 miles a minute!" Which would be, what, 18 thousand miles an hour? That's 23 times the speed of sound, so wouldn't Indianapolis have been destroyed by sonic booms? Atom tries running him off the road, but the Shazamobile was as invulnerable as its driver, and knocks the Atomobile out.

Mister Atom then summons his body back by remote control, and gets punched off the face of the earth. (Atom could take that, but didn't seem able to fly fast enough to get back to earth!) Captain Marvel throws the radioactive remnants of the Shazamobile into the sun, while Uncle Dudley backtracks Atom's trail with a geiger counter to catch Mr. Mind. CM leaves the depowered Shazamobile with the kids. Read more!

"Venue."

Sadly, I didn't go all-out on set design this week, but I'm not sure what a proper green room at a bigger venue would look like nowadays. Probably kind of plain? Of course, now that I'm done it occurs to me I could've maybe googled that, if searches worked for anything anymore. Are artists going to have to go back to keeping morgues of reference material?  (By the way, if you haven't seen the movie Green Room, you probably should.) 

 Hmm, we've actually seen Paladin before twice; but I think Dazzler has only appeared in background shots? If even that? Although her name has been dropped on more than one occasion.

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It's either going to be a cakewalk, or like pulling teeth, but I am going to get the SDCC exclusive Death's Head Marvel Legend! I love the original, yes? But, I have started to warm to Death's Head II; because I now see them like a regeneration, Doctor Who style--what if the Doctor was a sarcastic, murdery robot? DH II hit the companion lottery, though!

From 1993, Death's Head II #7, "Borgs in the Hood, Part the Third: Dark Ages" Written by Dan Abnett, pencils by Simon Coleby, inks by Sean Hardy and company.

We saw the previous issue some time back, as on the robophobic, medeval planet Lionheart; Major Oak has captured Death's Head II and was chomping at the bit to execute him. The feudal lord gets a bit tired of Oak's ranting, and asks his court wizard Methinx for a distraction: with illusions and lightning, he retells the history of the mechanoid wars of long ago, which was why robot life forms were still forbidden there. DH II is unimpressed, and suspects Methinx of using tech instead of 'magic.' (Methinx has an intricate costume, that looks like it would be a pain to draw regularly!)

Meanwhile, Tuck had fallen in with a travelling theater group, which puts her in position to free Death's Head II: it ain't Shakespeare, but it's close! DH II stabs Oak pretty good in their escape, noting he would "self-repair" and be after them again in no time. They escape with a daring leap into a moat, but DH II then has to fight a plesiosaur-looking thing, and loses his time-belt, which maybe could've got them out of there. His undead friend Yorick warns him, he still saw it as pre-ordained, that Methinx would kill Death's Head II...

I watch too much Doctor Who, this feels like the third episode of a lot of serials: escape from the last cliff-hanger, bit of running around, the plot moves forward just a smidge. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, I just wish it hadn't been a year since I saw the last one, and I'm not sure I have the next one handy! Read more!

Usually, it's more fun when three girls tear your suit off.

This one takes you on a ride--maybe not in an entirely satisfactory manner, but it hits a lot of notes. From 1970, Superman #223, "Half a Hero!" Written by Cary Bates, pencils by Curt Swan, inks by George Roussos.

Clark finds himself compelled to visit a nondescript restaurant, where the waitress thanks Superman for stopping by; then as he watches a pop star mobbed by fans at the airport, one locks eyes with him and says "Nice to see you here, Superman!" which no one else can here. Later, at a movie, when Superman appears on a newsreel (did they have those in the 70's?) an usher compliments him for looking great on film. Clark is then abducted by a flying saucer, and his suit exploded off of him, by the three girls, who introduce themselves at the Galactons, a club of super-heroines; that was looking for a new member--their first male member. (Cue "bow chicka wow wow" music!) The girls also have the same speech patterns as Huey, Dewey, and Louis; as one of them starts a thought in the panel, that will be picked up by the next one, then maybe finished by the third. This tryout is a riff on the old Legion of Super-Heroes origin, although it isn't acknowledged as such, except a mention that he belonged to that club as a kid. (Club membership, for children and adults, was a lot more prevalent back then; although I think it had faded a lot by the time I was a kid and is virtually unknown now, unless everybody's in a secret club without me!)

Superman's tryout for the Galactons goes awry, as he's taken to a distant planetoid, to tame a "Mumox." Instead, the Mumox gases Superman, knocking him out: he wakes up, hooked up to machines on the Galactons' ship, and the girls have bad news: the gas had not only nearly killed him, but it had permanently crippled him, leaving him unable to leave earth's yellow sun. Superman is furious, feeling like his effectiveness had been reduced by 50%; but it might've been more than that? Lotta not-yellow stars in space; and now Supes would still be able to see them in trouble, but would be unable to help.

The next day, a "defective" Superman-Robot poses as a shoeshine man and gives Perry White a hotfoot, in an elaborate scheme to get a warning to Superman: Superman isn't thrilled with the bot, and plans to scrap it later, but it was trying. A weird, giant, hypodermic needle-looking thing, is injecting weird crystals into the earth: no one else seems to have noticed earth getting a fix. Supes finds the crystals have lodged in the earth's core, and they were growing: left unchecked, they would destroy the planet in short order. Superman goes to the Galactons for help, presuming the girls could project x-rays (which seems presumptuous, but there's a reason!) and together they destroy the crystals with a massive blast of x-rays. The Galactons seemingly knew about the crystals, and their leader has something to tell Superman, who cuts them off: take off the mask, Supergirl! While there's other oddness here, I was wondering why the other two Galactons were also masked: they were from Kandor, but would Superman know every girl there...? Well, maybe.

Superman rather brusquely cuts them off, since it was "R-Day" in Kandor, and here's where this starts to feel like 20 pounds of plot in a 10-pound bag. He flies back to the Fortress of Solitude, and uses the "micro-wave tunnel" device to shrink down to visit the city. Which was also being hit, by the crystal menace! Supergirl finally explains: when the crystals started wrecking the bottle city, the Kandorians thought they were done for, but didn't want Superman to die with them, so they made up an elaborate hoax with the Galactons to convince Superman he couldn't live under a red sun. Then, Supergirl had the idea of duplicating the menace, with artificial crystals that wouldn't have done any harm, and Superman figured out how to stop them and now they could save the city. Except, they need super-x-rays, and the assorted trips back and forth had drained the micro-wave tunnel's power, so Superman and Supergirl couldn't get back under earth's yellow sun, and Kandor was doomed! This is why honesty is the best policy, kids. 

Despite the city being doomed, R-Day apparently stood for Release-Day, as the Kandorian Parole Board was going to release some prisoners from the Phantom Zone, as their sentences were up. The prisoners aren't particularly grateful: as one puts it, "I didn't spend 30 years in the Zone just to die the first day I'm out!" Superman notices another Phantom Zoner, who still had time on his sentence: Gor-Mu, a bio-chemist who caused several deaths with reckless experiments. Could Gor-Mu save Kandor? Maybe, but he has a condition: he wants to switch bodies with Superman! This seems like a problem, but relax, there's only two more pages in the issue; it all turns out.

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Well, at least the kid wasn't turned into cubes.

Cover for 2018's Infinity Countdown: Champions #2 by Clayton Crain. I feel like Rich has given Thanos a good fight in the past--better than his showing in Infinity Gauntlet #4--but this issue, while the Champions manage to beat the Chitauri Warbringer, Ironheart gets her suit destroyed by Thanos, then Sam gets his suit taken away by the Nova Corps. So, the cover's a bit of a lie. 

I know I got this one for a buck at EntertainMart, and they are probably having another sale now! This is why the mountains of comics lying around never get smaller...Have a good weekend!

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It's weird, I think I would see this more often with bands, and not even necessarily "one-hit wonders." They might have a song I really like, but I also might not feel the need to keep listening to them? This is actually one of my favorite single issues ever, and while I have read more, I don't necessarily see the point. From 1989, Fist of the North Star #5, featuring "Chapter 8: The Fire of Vengeance; Chapter 9: Tenacity…and Rage! Chapter 10: When a Giant Star Falls" Written by Yoshiyuki Okamura (as Buronson), translation by Fred Burke and Satoru Fujii, art by Tetsuo Hara, touch-ups by Wayne Truman. (Oddly, the GCD seems to treat this as new; Viz had collected it from Weekly Shōnen Jump (Japanese: 週刊少年ジャンプ), although I couldn't tell you the issue numbers.) This is also a squarebound number, please excuse that in the scans!

This is hyped as a "Special 64 page origin issue!" as the hero, Kenshiro, and his tagalong sidekick Bat, finally catches up to his foe, Shin, who had stolen Ken's girl Yuria. Literally, not figuratively. Post-apocalypse, Kenshiro had been doing pretty OK: while his master had just passed away, he still had Yuria, and the techniques of the North Star, Hokuto Shinken. Shin was his opposite number, practitioner of the Southern Cross: their master had wanted them to preserve both martial arts, and never fight; but after his demise Shin starts a reign of terror. He easily defeats Kenshiro, claiming his foe lacked "desire, and tenacity." Shin had both in spades, since he was ambitious, and in love with Yuria; who is disgusted by him. To force her to him, Shin pokes holes in Kenshiro, in the shape of the Big Dipper, until she finally relents and claims to love him. Kenshiro is left, face-down and bleeding in the dirt, to begin a long quest to get her back.

Now having learned "tenacity," Kenshiro is seemingly light-years beyond the blindingly fast Shin, effortlessly moving past his attacks and exploding one of his henchmen. (The Hokuto Shinken involved hitting pressure points or tsubo, like hitting someone in just the right spot for their skull to split into two!) Shin opts to remove Kenshiro's motivation, by punching a hole through Yuria: I see what he was trying to do there, but doesn't work. Enraged, Kenshiro smashes Shin's defenses, and punches tsubo into him in the shape of the Southern Cross. "One minute," Kenshiro tells him, presumably before he exploded into a mass of blood and gristle. But Kenshiro turns to Yuria, only to find...she was a doll?

Beaten, Shin tells him how he tried to win Yuria over, by beating his rabble into an army, taking over the countryside, and building a new city, Southern Cross. Yuria was unimpressed, and couldn't stand watching the horrors Shin committed anymore: she breaks her promise to Kenshiro to "live," and throws herself off a building. Shin cried, for the first time in his life, and Southern Cross would become Yuria's tomb. In a final act of defiance, he refuses "to be killed by the Fist of the North Star!" and throws himself off what might be that same building; which might be a less painful end than he would've gotten.

In the end, Kenshiro digs a grave, and buries Shin. Bat asks why, and is told "because we loved the same woman." 

I know I've read more of this series since--I probably read the next three issues Viz put out at the time--but in a lot of ways, the story ends for me right there: the hero gets vengeance, and it ultimately means nothing. Moreover, is there even a reason to go on? OK, I did read a lot of issues over the weekend; and yeah, Kenshiro finds a reason to live. Partially because of a huge retcon of this issue!

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"Joined."

I didn't think we were going to get the Liefeld Cable in there, and yet, here we are. Also, having one Stryfe figure is weird enough; having two very slightly different ones feels perverse somehow. I've only read a few comics with him, but in the Krakoa era, there were notes from a Quiet Council meeting where his resurrection was up for a vote, and was maybe unanimously shot down. The fact that he's maybe not a mutant, but a clone of a mutant, feels like splitting hairs; but he probably was downvoted just because he's a jerk.  Read more!

If I was organized, I'd have a big box of mini-series missing one issue.

Somehow, I think I got three issues of this at the last show; and while it feels like the third issue should've been there, it's also not outside the realm of possibility that I have that missing issue, maybe even from the same collection! From 1990, the Saga of the Original Human Torch #4, "The Flaming Fifties!" Written by Roy Thomas, pencils by Rich Buckler, inks by Romeo Tanghal.

Darn, I know the Torch sets Hitler on fire in the third issue, too. This was a mini-series retelling the history of the classic, android Human Torch, and his sidekick Toro. Here, we see the Torch revived from being buried by mobsters and rendered inert, by an atomic test. As an android, it feels like it was easy to take the Torch out of action as needed in his publication history; maybe a bit harder to do the same with Toro; who had been sold to the Russians and brainwashed, long before Bucky got the Winter Soldier treatment! The Torch manages to rescue his friend, who later snaps out of his conditioning when his "pappy" is in trouble. (It kind of sucks that I think both the Torch and Toro are alive in continuity right now, but don't really get the chance to hang out or anything, anymore than Cap and Bucky really do.) The blazing pair have some more adventures, until radiation from the atomic blast finally overheats the Torch, and he flames up over the desert and crashes. Toro covers the hole the Torch melted into, and would later be "killed" by the Mad Thinker, who would then revive the Torch to use against Johnny Storm and the Fantastic Four, in Fantastic Four Annual #4, which really isn't gone into. Furthermore, then a bunch of events don't happen and likewise aren't brought up, as the Torch wasn't rebuilt as the Vision, as was thought for some years. He would return in Avengers West Coast #50, and has been kind of hanging around ever since; although I know he's been depowered or deactivated more than a couple times.

Man, I kind of wish the Torch hadn't been used as set dressing/an Easter Egg in the first Captain America movie: it's neat, but if we're not going to see more, why bother? Maybe if the FF ever get off the ground, they'll come back to it. Read more!

I'm a casual Transformers fan, and possibly a more casual G.I. Joe fan; despite the ever-growing pile of Classified figures I keep building up. But I read the book regularly for a bit around issue #100, with M.D. Bright on art, and we got this one from a quarter-bin recently: from 1990, G.I. Joe #103, "Amazing the Welkin" Written by Larry Hama, pencils by M.D. Bright, inks by Randy Emberlin.

Storm Shadow breaks into the Pentagon, to get a face-to-face meeting with "the Jugglers," a secret cabal of generals. (There's a couple M.P.'s there, which is hard to believe: those guys wouldn't want anyone that might talk--or testify--around them!) They immediately assume he's there to assassinate them, despite his recent face-turn; but Storm Shadow just wants a mission. Not for him, but for Snake-Eyes: Scarlett was currently in a coma, and fading fast; seemingly taking S-E with her. Storm Shadow demands a nice, juicy mission; to help his friend out of depression; and he had one in mind, since he had helped himself to the secret file of one George Strawhacker. The Jugglers call it blackmail, but S-S calls Strawhacker "some kind of real hero" that had been set up for a fall and was currently a prisoner in Borovia somewhere.

Most of the rest of the issue is two other plots: the Joes and the October Guard retreat in Sierra Gordo, with Roadblock and Misha injured while trying to cover their friends; while Spirit and Mutt (and presumably his dog, Junkyard!) get arrested in Millville by Hawk and Law (and his dog, Order!) While they claimed the town had been taken over by COBRA, everyone was acting normally, and with no proof Hawk had to bring them in. But, the mill workers are later triggered by the hypnotic codeword "Broca" and return to work on COBRA Terrordromes. I don't know who Cobra Commander is explaining that to in that scene, but he is obviously just thrilled to death with himself. And Scarlett's sister gets a court order, against Snake-Eyes: she claims Scarlett "never took up with a proper gentleman" because of him, but she also has the plug pulled on her life support. Storm Shadow then slaps the proverbial gauntlet down in front of Snake-Eyes: Scarlett was going to die, that was a given; but he could still save Strawhacker, who had been going to marry his twin sister before she died.

On a plane over eastern Europe, Storm Shadow pushes his friend even further; putting Snake-Eyes into the "Arashikage mindset," ninja beast-mode. As Snake-Eyes parachutes in to go to murder-town; Storm Shadow tells Stalker, it's tough-love, had to be done...also, that way, apparently neither of them had to go? Snake-Eyes has got it! But, back in New York, Scarlett wakes up from her coma, asking where Snake-Eyes was!

I had actually been looking for another M.D. Bright issue from around that time, which had an ending I really liked: some local insurgents fighting COBRA get the Joes to safety, then accept only reloads and a single shaped-charge to continue their fight...but that was maybe all they needed!

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